The ex-wife of the Boulder firebombing attack suspect and their five children are staying in Colorado for now, following a weekend in which the Department of Homeland Security moved to deport the family.

Hayam el Gamal and her five children, including 5-year-old twins, were taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as they appeared for a required check-in only hours after arriving back in the state from a Texas detention facility. The family was then loaded onto a plane bound for Michigan. After it took off from Michigan and headed to New Jersey, an emergency order from a judge prompted officials to turn the plane around and return to Colorado, where the family was released from custody for the second time in two days.

“I think our whole community feels a suspicion and a deep sense of anxiety still, seeing what happened on Saturday, and what really has transpired this whole last week, has been the biggest rollercoaster of emotions,” said Emily Schilperoort, a member of a group based in Colorado Springs that is supporting the family.

The family has informed ICE of their whereabouts, and the mother and eldest daughter, Habiba, are wearing GPS monitoring devices. But supporters are not sharing their location with the public for fear of threats to the family.

Supporters and attorneys for the family say Hayam el Gamal has medical issues that include fluid around the heart and a lump on her chest that they claim were not properly treated while in ICE custody in Texas. The family had been held at the detention center in Dilley, Texas, since the days following the firebombing attack in Boulder.

El Gamal has since divorced the children’s father, Mohammed Soliman, whose family has said spent little time at home before the incident and was often withdrawn. An FBI agent testified in a hearing for Mohammed Soliman last year that there’s no indication the family had prior knowledge of the attack on demonstrators in Boulder in support of the hostages taken in the October 7, 2023, attacks in Israel.

“We also recognize that the trauma that they’ve experienced and all of what they’ve gone through in the last week,” said Schilperoort, noting that they were trying to give the family space and time to recover.

“They’re home, and they’re happy as much as you can from a traumatic event, and the family is resting,” said Eric Lee, an attorney for the family.

DHS on Monday replied to emailed questions with the same statement it sent over the weekend.

“The family received full due process and was issued a final order of removal on December 29, 2025. They appealed the judge’s decision. The board of appeals upheld the final order of removal on April 22, 2026. Despite receiving full due process, this activist judge appointed by Bill Clinton is releasing this terrorist’s family onto American streets AGAIN,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis.

Lawyers for El Gamal and her children claim the Board of Immigration Appeals made its April 22 decision after political pressure from the White House.

“So the Board of Immigration Appeals, in my understanding, upheld the validity of a deportation order for them, while the District Court was still deciding the legality of their detention,” explained Violeta Raquel Chapin, who teaches both criminal and immigration law as associate dean and clinical professor of law at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder. 

The family said they were in the process of applying for asylum and that they had work permits and Social Security numbers. But the government maintains the family no longer has permission to stay in the country.

A judge in a Texas federal district court released them after a recommendation from a magistrate earlier in the week.

“I think it was very clear under the law that they should not be detained. And that’s what the district court judge decided and ordered their release. They do have pending asylum claims, for which they have the right to be heard, under our laws and our regulations,” said Chapin.

“They have due process rights to have those asylum claims be heard,” she continued. “And for them to be able to present evidence about why they need asylum, for the government, then, to present their evidence about why they should not be granted asylum, it has to be done in a court of law, because those are the rules that we have, right? Imperfect though they may be, those are the rules. Chaos ensues when everybody stops following the rules.”

Chapin said that there is a statute that allows the government to detain the spouse and the children of somebody who is suspected of terrorist activity.

“But in this case, there’s an exception to that if they find that the family knew nothing about it, and here there’s ample evidence to show that the family had no idea that their dad was planning this,” Chapin said.

That isn’t the only exception, she explained.

“If the family renounces the attack, then that’s also another exception. They wouldn’t be detained. And the family immediately renounced the attack,” said Chapin. “They condemned what their father allegedly did immediately afterward. And so, all of those exemptions and arguments and the law were litigated in a court of law, and again, the judge found that those did not apply to the family and children.”

DHS insists it will continue to pursue deportation.

“Under President Trump, DHS will continue to fight for the removal of those who have no right to be in our country—especially terrorists and their associates. We are confident the courts will ultimately vindicate us,” said Bis.

Lawyers for the El Gamal family are filing an appeal regarding the government’s detention attempt and removal in a circuit court. Chapin thinks there’s a chance it could go to the Supreme Court.

Schilperoort and several other women have banded together as “Neighbors of Faith and Conviction,” stating that their support is driven by their beliefs.

“We were responding to what was happening to this family from a place of Christian faith and conviction, that this is not okay,” said Schilperoort.

As part of their efforts to assist the family, Schilperoort visited El Gamal in the Family Detention Center in Dilley, about ten days ago. She said el Gamal wondered, ‘Why is the government doing this to us? Like, what have we done? Like, we want to cooperate. We haven’t done anything wrong.’

“And to see the trauma that has been inflicted on this dear family is something that, again, has forever changed me,” said Schilperoort. 

Local officials in Colorado’s mountain counties are warning that new state emission regulations for landfills could force them to raise residents’ trash collection fees. 

The rules, which were passed last year by the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission, require public and private landfills that meet certain thresholds for methane emissions to install new pollutant control and monitoring systems, end open flare burning of methane and be equipped with biofilters. 

Those rules go into effect in 2029, but certain landfills have up to three years after that to install the emission capture and monitoring technology. 

Rural counties with publicly-owned landfills say the measure, while well-intentioned, will be expensive to implement, and could force officials to hike trash collection, commonly called tipping fees, to help cover the costs. 

“Several of these counties would be looking at many millions of dollars to buy this equipment in order to be compliant,” said Kelly Flenniken, executive director for Colorado Counties, Inc., which represents all 64 of the state’s counties. “While compliance is something we do want to do, we are really struggling with how we best do that and how we balance that requirement with all of the rest of the requirements that counties have to deliver.” 

In Garfield County, officials estimated last year that the regulations could cost $2 million to $2.5 million in upfront costs, with upwards of $100,000 in annual operating costs, though they will now need to reexamine the cost impacts since the rules have been finalized. The county’s landfill director, Deb Fiscus, said in an email that those costs will mean an increase in tipping fees, though the county doesn’t yet know how much. 

The same could be true in Pitkin County, home to Aspen, where infrastructure costs could be around $3.5 million, with an additional $200,000 to $400,000 in yearly operating expenses, and Summit County, where officials are projecting $3 million in upfront costs, with an additional $200,000 to $500,000 each year for compliance.

Summit County Commissioner Tamara Pogue said the county’s landfill is already operating at a roughly $3 million deficit, and officials are now looking to borrow money from one of its enterprise funds to help cover the landfill’s costs. 

Pogue said even without the new state regulations, “We have been concerned that we will already have to do a tipping fee increase.” 

“As someone who has worked so hard in every way possible to try and create some fiscal relief for Summit County residents, and believes deeply that affordability is incredibly difficult for so many Summit County residents, that is not something that I feel comfortable doing,” she said. 

Bill seeks to help with counties’ costs 

State lawmakers are racing to pass a funding solution this legislative session. 

Senate Bill 101 would allow landfill owners to tap money in the state’s community impact cash fund to help pay for new methane capture and monitoring infrastructure. The cash fund, created by lawmakers in 2022, is generated by fines on air polluters and primarily goes toward environmental projects in communities affected by air pollution. The bill would prioritize publicly-owned landfills for the dollars over private ones. 

The bipartisan measure is sponsored by Sens. Byron Pelton, R-Sterling, and Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, as well as Rep. Chris Richardson, R-Elbert County. It passed the Senate unanimously on April 20 and is now being considered in the House.

“I think we have a responsibility as a state to control methane and keep our air clean and do what we can to combat climate change,” Roberts said during the bill’s first committee hearing on April 13. “But the reality on the ground is that counties have to grapple with the costs of that.”

The bill represents a heavily watered-down version of its original self. Initially, the legislation included a provision requiring the Air Quality Control Commission to create a waiver process for operators to request more time for compliance. It also would have shielded operators from penalties for noncompliance if they could show that the reason was purely due to financial inability. 

Those provisions were stripped after facing pushback from environmental groups, who felt the original bill would allow landfill owners to skirt the state’s clean air rules and could jeopardize climate goals. 

Landfills are the third-largest emitter of methane in Colorado, according to state data, and the greenhouse gas is the second-largest driver of climate change after carbon dioxide. While methane has a shorter lifespan than carbon dioxide, it is also more potent, with a warming effect that is 86 times stronger than carbon dioxide over a 20–year-period, according to the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. 

Some of the bill’s environmental opponents were groups that had advocated for the new methane rules last year, which they said had already been negotiated with local governments and landfill operators to reach a compromise. 

“The final rule is the most cost-effective means to achieve the necessary and desired results in reduction in air pollution,” said Megan Kemp, Colorado policy representative for Earthjustice, during the bill’s April 13 committee hearing. 

Mounting pressures 

Local officials say they’re hopeful the bill, in its current state, will unlock desperately needed funding opportunities for landfills that can help mitigate the cost impacts on residents. 

Still, some are disappointed that key elements were dropped from the legislation. 

“I absolutely understand and appreciate the concern of the environmental community and their advocacy,” Pogue said, “but a little more flexibility would have been fair given the budget constraints that local governments have right now.” 

Pogue added that counties like hers have already invested heavily in programs meant to make their landfills cleaner. Several Western Slope communities were lauded in a report last year by environmental advocates that highlighted recycling and waste diversion programs, which it said help lower emissions and reduce pollution. 

“Most of the landfills out here in western Colorado want to do the right thing,” Tyler Carvell, Pitkin County’s landfill director, said of the state’s new methane regulations. “No one wants to expose their population to more methane than they need to. But they just need time to make it happen.”

Carvell said he wishes lawmakers had provided a pathway in their bill to give local governments more time to comply as they scramble to identify funding. 

While lawmakers’ bill gives landfill operators another avenue to receive state dollars through the community impact cash fund, it does not inject any new funding into that account, and counties will have to compete with other entities and projects to receive the money. 

Like most publicly-owned waste facilities, Pitkin County’s landfill is funded through enterprise dollars, which usually means fees for services, rather than general tax revenue. Carvell said that will almost certainly mean raising trash fees for residents to help pay for the new costs. 

“I’m not really sure without some additional funding sources that there’s a way around it,” he said. 

Carvell said that while the county projects that infrastructure costs will be around $3.5 million, those estimates are in today’s dollars, and inflation will likely push those figures even higher by the time counties actually have to implement the new systems. 

Another concern for Carvell is ensuring the county has the personnel to maintain the new landfill systems, given the staffing pressures already facing high-cost-of-living resort areas. With those new systems also come rules for how quickly landfill operators must respond to issues. 

“Most of my staff don’t even live within an hour of the landfill,” he said, adding, “It’s going to be really hard to find qualified people and have the budget to pay them enough in a certain range where they can actually deal with these problems.”

CHAFFEE COUNTY, Colo. (KKTV) – A 27-year-old Salida man who went missing while hunting earlier this month was found dead over the weekend, bringing a dayslong search in rugged terrain near Mount Shavano to a close.

The Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office said Kaden Sites was found near Tabeguache Creek, about a mile and a half from where his truck was discovered near the Blanks Cabin Trailhead.

Sites had gone hunting alone April 15 and planned to return for a doctor’s appointment later that day, according to Sheriff Andy Rohrich. When Sites missed that appointment, family members alerted authorities, launching an extensive search effort that spanned more than a week.

Rohrich described the toll the operation took on both crews and loved ones.

“Very tired, our entire team is. I can only imagine how tired all the family and friends are.” Rohrich said.

Multiple agencies and volunteers assisted in the search, covering difficult terrain marked by steep hills, heavy brush and downed timber.

“We appreciate all our neighboring counties who jumped in when we needed them. They were amazing to work with and the family was so appreciative for their help,” Rohrich said.

Search crews faced significant challenges navigating the backcountry conditions.

“The terrain for sure. All very heavy brush, steep hills and a ton of down timber. Very dangerous. But, our teams and the volunteers were un-wavered by Mother Nature,” Rohrich said.

In a message to the Sites family, Rohrich expressed sympathy while acknowledging the difficult outcome.

“I am so sorry for their loss. I always had some level of hope we would bring their loved one home safe. The end result really stinks. I am confident that he was no longer with us when the search started which brings some level of relief to the teams that he was not suffering. We join the family in grieving this loss to our community,” he said.

Authorities said foul play is not suspected. The cause of death has not been released as the investigation continues.

Sites’ sister, Hannah, said the family is grateful for the outpouring of support and hopes people will consider donating to Chaffee County Search and Rescue after crews spent nearly two weeks searching for her brother. You can donate to the North and South teams here.